Windows authentication and forms authentication

Forms authentication is similar to the Office Project Server 2007 authentication mechanism provided in Project Server 2003 in that a user enters a user name and password. The main difference is that the forms authentication users and their passwords are stored in membership stores rather than in the Project Server database. Examples of these stores include Active Directory, an SQL database, and an LDAP store. Access to a membership store is enabled through a membership provider, and there are specific providers for each type of membership store.

Each Project Server Web application (which was called a “virtual server” in Project Server 2003) can have multiple authentication mechanisms, but each IIS Web site within that Project Server Web application can only be associated with one authentication model. For example, it would be possible to extend a Project Server Web application to include one Windows authentication IIS Web site and two forms authentication IIS Web sites, one using an LDAP store and the other Microsoft SQL Server. Because these IIS Web sites are part of the same Project Server Web application, they share the same content database. Therefore, the page content appears the same for users independent of which IIS Web site they access. Because they are separate IIS Web sites, the users need to access them on different port numbers.